Of truth, consequences, and the future

As we headed into the final weeks of the election cycle, our team at CosmoQuest had the horrible realization that we were seeing people in government agencies go silent so they could avoid potential fallout if Trump was elected and Musk gained power & influence through Trump’s election. We also saw companies breaking federal regulations that are likely to go away if Trump is elected. This combination of watching people choosing silence out of fear and companies acting in their own best interests without concern for rules and regulations has been quite frankly chilling.

As both a journalist and as someone who receives federal grants to do science, I found myself pausing to see who would win the elections; to see if it would be the lawyer or the felon. The winner would decide how risky it would be for me to report all the facts of what is going on in Space Science.

As we all now know, the felon won.

I know from experience that this can have a chilling effect on what scientists can say and do.

In a 2017 formal reprimand from a NASA program officer, I was blasted for saying negative things about Trump on my personal Twitter. I was not a NASA/government employee, I had a disclaimer about my tweets being my own, and I had broken no rules or regulations per other NASA officials I spoke with. Nevertheless, I was reprimanded and there were real consequences to my funding and to my ability to do my job (which I ended up quitting for moral reasons).

I currently have 2 active NASA grants. I received one of them 3 days ago.

I have spent the past week rage-cleaning my house, blaring music too loud, and hiding in books that require complete concentration to follow. When not hiding from our new reality, I’ve been writing grants for the November 15 NSF deadline and contemplating one question: Do I continue to speak my conscience in personal essays and tweets that are clear opinion pieces, and do we continue to fully report space news through EVSN and websites like substack.

I and our entire EVSN staff have decided we will continue to report the full truth, including reporting on aerospace companies breaking laws/rules /regulations, and reporting on predicted outcomes of different actions/authorizations/deregulation. As always, our reporting will be rooted in facts and in science.

We recognize this will likely cost us some of our donors, could cost us some of our funding, and may put us personally at risk if the worst-case, retribution against detractors, threats becomes actions.

We would rather face consequences than try and live with ourselves knowing we didn’t present the complete story about what is going on in space science (which includes Earth science) and aerospace.

We have mourned, and now we are picking up our pens and keyboards, warming up our lighting rigs, and preparing to report the facts as we find them. You can expect stories on everything that is going on in our environment and beyond our world, as well as analysis of the research community’s ability to do science in our changing political landscape.

We are journalists, and we accept that our reporting puts us at risk. We are committed to always speaking the truth.

I will continue to use this platform to speak truth. And I hope you will come with me as we continue to explore this universe and the factors that influence that exploration.